After reading a few forums, saying "everyone be sure and call t-mobile about the trackball issue", I decided to make that call. I've been with t-mo and previous names since 1998. Well turns out throwing my weight around did nothing.

I spoke with the blackberry specialists', and explained the entire issue (ringer muting when trackball moves). Long story short she said this is the first time she's heard of this problem. I then spoke with about 3 different top-level technicians and they all denied a problem and talked nothing about an update. The word was "this is just how the phone works".

After bit*hing up a storm, I said I want to return the phone and cancel my contract (still in the 15 days). Long story short they are giving me 50% off a case...however there are no cases in the stores!!!! BS BS BS I tell you.

Yep, The people you are talking to just don't know anything but I can tell you for a fact that the rogers version fixes and one is in the works for TMO that will fix it as well. Someone knows just not the people you talk to on the phone.

Yea, not sure whats going on there. I had to return my phone Sunday due to a dead pixel and at the store I asked about any common issues being reported, at first they didn't acknowledge any but when I said I've heard about issues with the trackball muting the ringer if touched even slightly they did in a round-about way confirm it and were quick to say "TMO is actively working on a soon to be released fix." I asked for an ETA and he said he didn't really have any channels to that exact info but suggested I should check the site periodically.

I haven't bothered getting the Rogers update as that issue hasn't actually caused me too many missed calls. I usually get atleast a partial single ring, which doens't do much if I'm in a loud environment. For that I've enabled vibrate which helped.

why hold off? what do you have to loose? It cant hurt anything and it fixes many of the small bugs that are a pain when you want to use a certian feature but cant because off a bug... I RIM OS is a RIM OS no matter what provider has there name on it.

Is that the case? I wasn't sure thats why I was holding off. So this update from Rogers... its just an update from RIM provided by Rogers? And is this update provided to all carriers? So in reality TMO is sitting on an update?

Having worked there, sometimes we arent allowed to give out information but cant say that we are limited as such. Hopefully they are working out the bugs with rim that the rodgers update introduced. That and Tmob is always slow with this kind of stuff anyway. :D

Personally i dont mind the perl silencing the call when i touch the track ball, as thats the way all blackberries have worked. There hasnt been much of an outcry on the others as the trackwheel was on the side and didnt usually get bumped, or rolled when it was being taken out of the holster.

Thanks guys...I just wanted to share my findings. I know they have a million other things/customers to worry about, but I thought these "high level" people would have known.

As far as the Rodgers update, I'm going to hold off a couple more weeks...just in case t-mo comes out with their update.

The Pearl is just one of many, many phones that T-Mo has to deal with so I don't know that I would expect everyone to know about all aspects of the phone, bugs, updates, etc., especially when the phone was just released.

I do find it odd that no one would know about the trackball/ringer issue. Don't any of those people have an 8100 for personal use or cruise these Forums?

I remember my 7100t when it first came out. I called T-Mo about a problem. The rep admitted she did not know much about the phone as it had just come out. She also admitted she was accessing an online tech manual while talking to me. She then had to ask a supervisor for help and that person did not know the answer.

About 8 months later I had another question, called T-Mo and the person gave an answer quickly. Obviously they had some time to learn about the phone.

My understanding is that RIM comes out with updates and patches, then they test them with T-Mo techs and eventually T-Mo will decide when to release it. It is NOT as simple as consumers noticing bugs and then instantly T-Mo releases a patch the next weekend. If things were that fast problems like those with the Rogers release occur. [Some bugs fixed, replaced by others].

As I said before, I think about a two to three month period after a device or program goes public is a reasonable time within which to issue patches. That is unless there is some security issue or the device simply does not work. Under those circumstances, companies need to work 24/7 to issue fixes ASAP.

Whether you know this or not, time spent on support calls for unknown issues will cost the company more money than simply letting someone know that they're either unaware of a new version of software being released or they are aware of the issue, sorry for the inconvenience, and know that a fix is being worked on right now. Releasing untested software to fix a certain issue although having the rather large possibility of creating more serious unknown issues is a BIG no-no in the world of business.

__________________In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.

I would imagine TMO has it ranked up there pretty high, people missing calls is close to "device not working" status. In my case I haven't though, just saying what alotta people here are saying.

TMO is in my favor right now so I'll wait, EDGE perofrmance is pretty damn good, yea its no EVDO but I'll take my 100+kb/s and love it. Also they have hands down the lowest priced plans. And I get better coverage than their coverage checks indicate. In places they said I'd get 3-4 bars I get 5 bars etc... then add the 8100 and I'm in a love fest.

After installing the udpate, I too still have the issue with the trackball muting incoming calls. I removed the vendor.xml file, followed all the instructions for installation, and removed the battery afterward, but I still have the issue.

My desktop manager version is 4.2.0.10. Is that correct?

*UPDATE* Ok, I downloaded and installed the 4.2.0.61 handheld update but its still not fixed.

After installing the udpate, I too still have the issue with the trackball muting incoming calls. I removed the vendor.xml file, followed all the instructions for installation, and removed the battery afterward, but I still have the issue.

My desktop manager version is 4.2.0.10. Is that correct?

*UPDATE* Ok, I downloaded and installed the 4.2.0.61 handheld update but its still not fixed.

Don't know what else to try, but I guess I'll just live with the bug.

You must not be doing something right. An OS upgrade is an OS upgrade, and all of these people saying they have "upgraded to the Rogers OS and still not fixed!" have done something wrong. Individual user settings do not make an OS work differently on some phones than it does for others. If you have really updated to the Rogers OS, then the trackball issue on calls is definitely, 100%, without question, fixed. It does mute it when you move the trackball, but if you stop moving it, then it rings on the very next ring.